Thursday, March 03, 2011

Get Great Local Advice from the Crowd

CrowdbeaconCrowdbeacon is a great new app that lets you ask location based questions. The app is available for the iPhone and for the desktop.

Using the app you can click on a Google Map to set your location (if you are using your phone your location will be detected automatically). Once you have determined your location you can then ask your question. For example, you could ask where the best restaurant for tapas is nearby or ask if there is anywhere with live music in the neighborhood.

Your question is then posted to other Crowdbeacon users in your vicinity. When you sign up to Crowdbeacon you are asked to choose one category that you are willing to help people in your home city with (i.e, nightlife, shopping, restaurants etc.). This self-identified choice powers the Crowdbeacon notification system, which lets the user know that someone in their city has a question about the category they chose.

I asked Crowdbeacon for a great place to get breakfast on Van Ness Ave in San Francisco. Despite it being 2.30 am I started getting suggestions in a matter of seconds. Which is pretty impressive (unfortunately, as I was actually in London, I couldn't check out how good any of the suggestions were).

If no one nearby is listening and you don't get a real-time repsonse Crowdbeacon will answer your question with relevant information from other location-based services such as Yelp, Foursquare and Wishpond.